Ayurveda Articles
NAMA strives to provide timely and relevant information for the entire Ayurvedic community. We hope that these articles deepen your understanding of the challenges we face, as well as appreciation for the successes we have already achieved.
Choose from the categories below to link to topics of interest, or scroll down the page to view the entire list of articles.
NAMA had a very busy and productive year in 2016. We transitioned in mid-2015 from two to five part-time employees in order to help the organization keep up with the significant growth we experienced in late 2014. Not only our membership growth, but also all the initiatives the Board had set in place began to come to fruition, such as …
Awareness of Ayurveda is spreading! As a community, we must all make sure we represent our profession competently and with integrity. Toward that end and with this newsletter, NAMA is announcing the launch of a series of articles and webinars on topics pertinent to all professionals in the field of Ayurveda. Our intention is to provide timely and relevant information for the entire Ayurvedic community thereby fostering a common understanding about where we are, what we’re doing and what’s next.
For over a decade, NAMA has tirelessly worked to create and implement internal regulatory standards for the practice of Ayurveda. These standards were designed to improve and promote the safety, efficacy, recognition and legitimacy of the practice. They were also intended to serve as a framework for state licensing and regulation of Ayurveda in the United States.
It is essential to the maturation of the Ayurvedic profession that services be provided in a legal, ethical manner. All states prohibit the practice of medicine without a valid medical license. Fortunately, ten states have passed health freedom acts that allow considerable latitude for the legal, unlicensed practice of Ayurveda. Ayurvedic practice in the remaining 40 states is also possible with the appropriate cautionary caveats.
NAMA has dedicated the past 15 years to establishing and developing Ayurveda in the U.S. In the process of studying other health care professions and their development processes, the board, committees and other involved individuals recognized the need to establish three levels of Ayurveda practice that would best serve the American public.
Over the past 40 years, many graduates with a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) degree, as well as BAMS MD, have come to the U.S. It is not an easy task to introduce a new system of medicine into a completely different culture. To practice or teach Ayurveda here, it is essential to understand the laws pertinent to practicing as a health care professional – licensed or otherwise.
Health freedom is a concept based on the belief that medicine, as it is practiced in the United States, is a narrowly defined modality and that individuals have the right to seek other forms of health care that may not fall within the definitions and scope of conventional medicine.
The purpose of this article is twofold: (1) to explore several of the key professional/regulatory issues associated with the acceptance and recognition of Yoga, Yoga therapy, and Ayurveda in the United States, and (2) to outline and analyze the options available to these professions to engage in a process of self-regulation.
After nearly five years of planning and discussion by NAMA's Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy subcommittee, a subcommittee of the Standards committee, the NAMA board of directors recently approved educational standards and competencies for recognizing Ayurvedic Yoga Therapists.
NAMA has been systematically building a credentialing program based upon the belief that credentialing is one of the most important ingredients to the advancement of the Ayurvedic profession and a key component to the goal of licensing. There are many steps toward credentialing and NAMA has been hard at work over the past twelve years laying the groundwork. We are now ready to establish viable and fair National Exams for the Ayurvedic Health Counselor and the Ayurvedic Practitioner and will eventually create one for the Ayurvedic Doctor level.
This listing of professional categories for the practice of Ayurveda in the United States represents the current state of the profession and also the potential for the growth of the profession moving forward. These three categories are distinguished by their focus on health and disease as well as the educational and experiential background needed to be competent as a professional in each category.
Definition of Patient Encounter (PE): A patient encounter is defined as a combination of the following, a substantial percentage of which should involve direct, hands-on contact. A patient encounter refers to each encounter: initial or follow up. Schools are encouraged to provide the opportunity for long-term follow up by which students can experience outcomes.
